Preliminary ground correlation testing has been conducted with an 8 cm mercury ion thruster and diagnostic instrumentation replicating to a large extent the IAPS flight test hardware, configuration, and electrical grounding/isolation. Thruster efflux deposition retained at 25 C was measured and characterized. Thruster ion efflux was characterized with retarding potential analyzers. Thruster-generated plasma currents, the spacecraft common (SCC) potential, and ambient plasma properties were evaluated with a spacecraft potential probe (SPP). All the measured thruster/spacecraft interactions or their IAPS measurements depend critically on the SCC potential, which can be controlled by a neutralizer ground switch and by the SPP operation.


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    Title :

    Ground correlation investigation of thruster spacecraft interactions to be measured on the IAPS flight test


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Intern. Elec. Propulsion Conf. ; 1984 ; Tokyo, Japan


    Publication date :

    1984-01-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English